Tokyo - Local governments that host nuclear plants are refusing to comply with Tokyo's call for the restart of suspended reactors in the wake of Japan's worst nuclear crisis.

On Wednesday, Fukui Governor Issei Nishikawa stressed his intention to reject the central government's decision to resume operations of atomic plants in his prefecture. [link to www.monstersandcritics.com]

Expect more leaks from underground piping at nuclear power plants as plants age and pipes corrode, says a federal report released Tuesday.

In addition, plant owners cannot assure that a safety-related pipe will continue to function properly between inspection intervals, according to the Government Accountability Office report. [link to www.app.com]

TOKYO—The Japanese scholar leading the probe into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power-plant crisis said he would focus on fact-finding and prevention rather than on laying blame for the accident, and dismissed criticism that the effort lacked teeth.

"Everyone makes mistakes," wrote Yotaro Hatamura, who heads the new government-appointed committee investigating the continuing disaster, in a guest book at Japan National Press Club, where he held a news conference Wednesday. "We must caution ourselves against making mistakes but we also have to be generous with people about their mistakes."

The Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor — a long-troubled national project — has been in a precarious state of shutdown since a 3.3-ton device crashed into the reactor’s inner vessel, cutting off access to the plutonium and uranium fuel rods at its core.

Engineers have tried repeatedly since the accident last August to recover the device, which appears to have gotten stuck. They will make another attempt as early as next week.

But critics warn that the recovery process is fraught with dangers because the plant uses large quantities of liquid sodium, a highly flammable substance, to cool the nuclear fuel.

Yasuteru Yamada, a 72-year-old former anti-nuclear activist, will lead a band of pensioners to the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant early next month to help clean up the site of Japan’s worst atomic disaster since World War II.

Yamada, a retired Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd. (5405) plant engineer, is waiting for Tokyo Electric Power Co. to allow his volunteer “Skilled Veterans Corps” to carry out preliminary inspections at the plant after the government welcomed the move.

The sight of a nuclear power plant in Nebraska surrounded by the rising waters of the flooding Missouri River is cause for alarm, to say the least.

Just 19 miles from Omaha, the Fort Calhoun plant had been warned back in October by the NRC that it had inadequate flood plans in place, and that flooding could cause damage to the plant’s core.

Even as the water levels have risen all around the plant, its operators claim there’s no problem. “This is not something out of the ordinary,” said Jeff Hanson, spokesman for the Omaha Public Power District.

Spare capacity is also a potential weapon in the kingdom's efforts to keep Iran in check, senior royal Prince Turki al-Faisal said in comments this month reported by The Wall Street Journal. Prince Turki also implied that if Iran develops nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia would be forced to follow suit—a scenario that shadows Saudi nuclear-energy plans.

U.S. nuclear power plants and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) need to improve how groundwater leaks are monitored and reported to the public, the Government Accountability Office concluded in a new analysis.

Experts in the GAO’s public health discussion group said that more information could enhance identifying leaks and characterizing their impacts. They also said the leaks have not affected the environment outside of the plant but that they could affect plant decommissioning, including additional remediation to meet NRC regulations for unrestricted release of the site.

The findings were made public in the report “Oversight of Underground Piping Systems Commensurate with Risk, but Proactive Measures Could Help Address Future Leaks,” released by the GAO June 21.

The measures that various international organizations are currently taking in regard to Iran’s nuclear program are politically motivated. Such an approach, particularly when adopted by independent and non-aligned countries, will create a crisis of legitimacy for them.

These organizations were originally designed for the Cold War era, and the role that they are playing at this juncture will undermine their effectiveness since it is a multi-polar world nowadays and relations between countries are multifaceted. And thus they are expected to avoid the adoption of political approaches and to accept multi-polar principles and multilateralism.

MP Mehdi Sanaii is a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Iranian parliament.

Drawing further scorn from Japanese regulators, Tokyo Electric Power Co. has said it cannot find a number of subcontractor employees who worked at the Fukuhsima Daiichi nuclear plant in the early days of the crisis. The utility recently checked the radiation exposure of nearly all of the 3,639 people who worked at the site between the station blackout and March 31, but TEPCO said 69 could not be located. [link to nuclearstreet.com]

AND -

Radioactive suits improperly disposed

The Yomiuri Shimbun

FUKUSHIMA--Twelve protective suits and masks--including one suit on which a slight amount of radioactivity was detected--were found to have been improperly disposed of in Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, which is located near the 30-kilometer exclusion zone of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The Tamura city government received a report from a citizen on April 6 that the suits were abandoned at a site along National Highway Route 288.

Government officials found 10 suits, masks and gloves discarded on the ground that day. Two more suits were found disposed of April 12 and on Friday, respectively, at the same location. The government checked the amount of radioactivity and detected radioactive emissions at a level of about 4,000 counts per minute from one of the suits [link to www.yomiuri.co.jp]

Related? In my mind, YES!

"Well-behaved women seldom make history." —Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. ~Edward Everett Hale